A conventional crimping press has an anvil for supporting an electrical terminal during crimping and a die which is movable towards and away from the anvil. To crimp a terminal onto a wire, the terminal is placed on the anvil, the end of the wire is inserted into the ferrule or barrel of the terminal, and the die is caused to move towards the anvil to the limit of the stroke of the press. The die then returns to its starting position.
In order to obtain a satisfactory crimped connection, the "crimp height" of the terminal is closely controlled; the crimp height is a measure of the height or maximum vertical dimension of the terminal after crimping and ordinarily, if a terminal is not crimped to the correct crimp height for the terminal and wire combination, an unsatisfactory crimped connection will result.
In conventional crimping presses, when the wire size is changed, it is necessary to adjust the stroke of the ram of the crimping press so that the correct crimp height will be obtained for each size wire. The requirement of such adjustments to the press is a frequent cause of defective crimps. The operator may neglect to make the necessary adjustment or the operator might improperly adjust the press when a wire size is changed. Since the adjustments from one wire size to the next wire size are very slight and since the appearance of a satisfactory crimp will be very like the appearance of an imperfect crimp, terminals may be crimped by an operator without realizing that improper procedures are being followed.
The present invention is directed to the achievement of a crimping press which has the capability of crimping terminals onto wires which lie within a predetermined range of wire sizes without making any adjustments to the press. When an operator is operating a press in accordance with the invention and has available only wires which are within the predetermined range, all of the crimped connections the operator makes will be satisfactory and it is not necessary to rely on the operator to make delicate adjustments to the crimping press when the wire size is changed.